(Press-News.org) The first clue for finding life on other planets is finding liquid water. The moons of Saturn and Jupiter like Enceladus, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto are suspected of holding oceans of liquid water beneath icy crusts. Similarly, some exoplanets beyond our solar system likely host liquid water, crucial for habitability. But detecting water, when we can’t physically access these celestial bodies, poses challenges. Ice-penetrating radar, a geophysical tool, has proven capable of detecting liquid water on Earth and beneath Mars’ South polar cap.
Now, this instrument is aboard the JUICE spacecraft and it is on its way to Jupiter’s icy moon Ganymede and will also be aboard the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will be launched to Europa later this year. What can we expect to learn from these missions and how can we use ice-penetrating radar for future planetary exploration? Dr Elena Pettinelli of Roma Tre University, with extensive experience in planetary exploration using ice-penetrating radar, will delve into the utility of this technology in her presentation next week at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly EGU24.
Dr. Pettinelli, who was part of the team that discovered a subglacial stable body of liquid water on Mars, will trace the historical applications of ice-penetrating radar in planetary exploration before she dives into prospective uses of ice-penetrating radar in locating and characterizing liquid water.
Scientists hope to use ice-penetrating radar to determine the depth and chemistry of water beneath the icy surface of Jovian moons. Dr. Pettinelli explains that the radar’s penetration depth correlates with ice salinity; saltier ice impedes radar transmission to a greater extent. “Depending on the behavior of the radio waves, we might be able to better tell the distribution of salt,” she says, which her team then ground-truths through laboratory experiments.
“We can use all this information to improve our understanding of the distribution of liquid water in the solar system,” Dr. Pettinelli says. “There’s much more water than we thought 20 or 30 years ago, and it’s really interesting to use this technique to try to understand where the water could be.”
END
Unraveling water mysteries beyond Earth
2024-04-19
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Signs of multiple sclerosis show up in blood years before symptoms
2024-04-19
In a discovery that could hasten treatment for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), UC San Francisco scientists have discovered a harbinger in the blood of some people who later went on to develop the disease.
In about 1 in 10 cases of MS, the body begins producing a distinctive set of antibodies against its own proteins years before symptoms emerge. These autoantibodies appear to bind to both human cells and common pathogens, possibly explaining the immune attacks on the brain and spinal cord that are the hallmark of MS.
The findings were published in Nature Medicine on ...
Ghost particle on the scales
2024-04-19
In the 1930s, it turned out that neither the energy nor the momentum balance is correct in the radioactive beta decay of an atomic nucleus. This led to the postulate of "ghost particles" that "secretly" carry away energy and momentum. In 1956, experimental proof of such neutrinos was finally obtained. The challenge: neutrinos only interact with other particles of matter via the weak interaction that is also underlying the beta decay of an atomic nucleus. For this reason, hundreds of trillions of neutrinos from the cosmos, especially the sun, can pass through our bodies every second without causing any damage. Extremely ...
Light show in living cells
2024-04-19
Observing proteins precisely within cells is extremely important for many branches of research but has been a significant technical challenge - especially in living cells, as the required fluorescent labelling had to be individually attached to each protein. The research group led by Stefan Kubicek at CeMM has now overcome this hurdle: With a method called "vpCells," it is possible to label many proteins simultaneously, using five different fluorescent colours. This automated high-throughput approach, aided by AI-assisted image recognition, opens up entirely new applications in various disciplines, from fundamental cell biology to drug discovery. The study ...
Climate change will increase value of residential rooftop solar panels across US, study shows
2024-04-19
Graphic
Climate change will increase the future value of residential rooftop solar panels across the United States by up to 19% by the end of the century, according to a new University of Michigan-led study.
The study defines the value of solar, or VOS, as household-level financial benefits from electricity bill savings plus revenues from selling excess electricity to the grid—minus the initial installation costs.
For many U.S. households, increased earnings from residential rooftop ...
Could the liver hold the key to better cancer treatments?
2024-04-19
PHILADELPHIA – Liver inflammation, a common side-effect of cancers elsewhere in the body, has long been associated with worse cancer outcomes and more recently associated with poor response to immunotherapy. Now, a team led by researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center and Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found a big reason why.
In their study, published today in Nature Immunology, the researchers discovered that cancer-induced liver inflammation causes liver cells to secrete proteins called serum amyloid A (SAA) proteins, which circulate through the body and hinder the ability of T cells—major anticancer weapons of the immune system—to ...
Warming of Antarctic deep-sea waters contribute to sea level rise in North Atlantic, study finds
2024-04-19
Analysis of mooring observations and hydrographic data suggest the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation deep water limb in the North Atlantic has weakened. Two decades of continual observations provide a greater understanding of the Earth’s climate regulating system.
A new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience led by scientists at University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atlantic ...
Study opens new avenue for immunotherapy drug development
2024-04-19
HOUSTON ― In a new study published today in Nature Biomedical Engineering, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have designed a new method for developing immunotherapy drugs using engineered peptides to elicit a natural immune response inside the body.
In preclinical models of locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer, this method improved tumor control and prolonged survival, both as a monotherapy and in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors.
“Amino acids are the building blocks of life and, when a few of them are linked together, they create a peptide. ...
Baby sharks prefer being closer to shore, show scientists
2024-04-19
Remember #BabyShark? And no, this was not the very catchy song for kids that took the internet by storm. Earlier this year, social media was abuzz with stunning footage of a newborn great white shark, captured by a flying drone.
Now, marine scientists have shown for the first time that juvenile great white sharks select warm and shallow waters to aggregate within one kilometer from the shore. These results, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, are important for conservation of great white sharks – especially as ocean temperatures increase due ...
UBC research helps migrating salmon survive mortality hot-spot
2024-04-19
When Kevin Ryan and the other hardworking volunteers at Mossom Creek Hatchery in Port Moody, B.C. release young coho smolts into the ocean, they’re never quite certain how many will return as adults.
Mossom releases between 5,000 and 10,000 coho smolts each year, and is one of the few hatcheries to release coho directly into the ocean, rather than into a river. Until now, no research had looked at the success of direct ocean releases of coho.
UBC researchers used acoustic telemetry to tag and track coho on their journey. The results were revealing: ...
Technical Trials for Easing the (Cosmological) Tension
2024-04-19
Thanks to the dizzying growth of cosmic observations and measurement tools and some new advancements (primarily the “discovery” of what we call dark matter and dark energy) all against the backdrop of General Relativity, the early 2000s were a time when nothing seemed capable of challenging the advancement of our knowledge about the cosmos, its origins, and its future evolution.
Even though we were aware there was still much to uncover, the apparent agreement between our observations, calculations, and theoretical framework was indicating that our knowledge of the universe was set to grow significantly and without ...